An audit of the Department of Social Services’ (DSS) implementation of a cashless debit card system to help disadvantaged people better manage their finances has failed to determine whether it does or not.
In his report, The Implementation and Performance of the Cashless Debit Card Trial, Auditor-General, Grant Hehir found that while the Department had established appropriate arrangements to implement the trial, “its approach to monitoring and evaluation was inadequate”.
“As a consequence, it is difficult to conclude whether there had been a reduction in social harm and whether the card was a lower cost welfare quarantining approach,” Mr Hehir said.
He said the Cashless Debit Card Trial aimed to test whether social harm caused by alcohol, gambling and drug misuse could be reduced by placing a portion (up to 80 per cent) of a participant’s income support payment onto a card that could not be used to buy alcohol or gambling products or to withdraw cash.
“The Department of Social Services largely established appropriate arrangements to implement the Cashless Debit Card Trial, however, its approach to monitoring and evaluation was inadequate,” Mr Hehir said.
He said DSS established appropriate arrangements for consultation, communicating with communities and for governance of the implementation of the card trial. It was also responsive to operational issues as they arose during the trial.
“However, it did not actively monitor risks identified in risk plans and there were deficiencies in elements of the procurement processes,” Mr Hehir said.
He said while DSS established relevant and mostly reliable key performance indicators, it did not cover some operational aspects of the trial such as efficiency, including cost.
“There was a lack of robustness in data collection and the Department’s evaluation did not make use of all available administrative data to measure the impact of the trial,” Mr Hehir said.
He noted that the trial was not designed to test the scalability of the cashless debit card and there was no plan in place to undertake further evaluation.
Auditor-General made six recommendations, all of which were agreed by the Department and his 60-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.
The audit team was Sandra Dandie, Judy Jensen, Michael Jones and Sally Ramsey.
